Quote:
Originally Posted by The Unabomber
And don't forget the open bar, week long stampede parties that they hold every year. I understand the profit end of things, the problem i have is that the gas prices go up further and further each summer, why? People drive more in the summer? People might take more road trips but those same people might feel like riding a bike to work as it's nice outside. The rationale used to explain this is a joke, hey, it's a long weekend so why don't we raise the price of gas.
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All you have to do is look at gasoline inventory reports. They go up because demand is up. The price is high because the supply is tight.
It's easy for people who don't understand the supply chain to question why something costs more a couple of weeks later. Afterall when talking about energy most people's experience as to how it happens entails flicking a light switch and turning on a gas pump and realiably it's almost always there and back in the 1980s and 1990s in the range of what was considered a 'reasonable price'. From where they stand nothing's changed and they are dumbfounded that somehow flicking on that same light switch and turning on that same gas pump could concievably cost more than it did last month, last year, last decade.
Thing is the geology, and engineering restraints on the energy business has never been more challanging than the last few years (The world isn't the same), and we're relying on pretty much the exact same refining and marketing infrastructure as the 1970's to make it happen. We've reached the capacity of where that infrastructure can take us and on top of that the Chinese and Indian people are now starting to up their oil and gas consumption towards the levels you or I use thus bidding up the cost of Crude oil. It's possible to continue to supply your gas needs into the future by building more refineries and pipelines etc, but it's only now (due to higher gasoline prices) economical to do so. It'll take some years to build more infrastructure to accomidate increasing demand. Even then don't expect a break at the pump because the enviro crowd will be out in full force between now and then ensuring you don't pay any less to pollute.